Traefik 2.0: From Ingress Controller to Edge Gateway

Introduction

Traefik 2.0 shipped on September 17, 2019, transforming the project from a simple ingress controller into a full-featured edge gateway. With new CRDs and protocol support, Traefik now fronts HTTP, TCP, and UDP workloads alike.

Router & Middleware Model

• IngressRoute CRDs: Declarative resources for path, header, and method-based routing.
• Middleware Chains: Compose auth, rate-limiting, compression, and rewrite filters.
• Service Abstractions: Split traffic across services, mirror requests, or implement canary patterns.

Protocol Expansion

1. TCP & TLS Passthrough: Route database connections or MQTT brokers without terminating TLS.
2. UDP Support: Load balance DNS or game servers through Traefik’s edge.
3. gRPC & WebSockets: First-class awareness ensures streaming protocols stay sticky.

Operations Toolkit

• CRD Status Feedback: See misconfigurations instantly via Kubernetes events.
• Dynamic Configuration Providers: Integrate Consul, Etcd, and file-based backends.
• Dashboard Refresh: Real-time view into routers, services, and middlewares with Prometheus metrics baked in.

Getting Started

kubectl apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/containous/traefik/v2.0/docs/content/reference/dynamic-configuration/kubernetes-crd-rbac.yml
kubectl apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/containous/traefik/v2.0/docs/content/reference/dynamic-configuration/kubernetes-crd.yaml

Define an IngressRoute and middleware:

apiVersion: traefik.containo.us/v1alpha1
kind: Middleware
metadata:
  name: strip-prefix
spec:
  stripPrefix:
    prefixes:
      - /api

Summary

Traefik 2.0 arms platform teams with policy-driven edge routing without the complexity of heavyweight API gateways.